Forget Sorrow - A History More Than Black & White

When it comes to the comic form, the placement of each panel as well the characters and objects within them is intentional as well as the placement of dialogue and narration. The artist, as they construct their story, consider the most effective way for all of these elements to interplay with each other in order to have the correct effect on the reader while they experience the story playing out before them. So it is also important to consider the use of color or the lack thereof (such as Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home in which the images are all in shades of blue). I thought it was interesting initially that Belle Yang chose for her graphic novel to be depicted in black and white. But isn’t it just easier that way? Less coloring to do and less likely for her father to come back with “Here, illogical [...] This wrong, too” (37) if she used a color that wasn’t accurate? I’m glad you asked! To which, I say, maybe. It’s possible that in her debut graphic that she wanted to get back to the basics and focus more on the story rather than the images. But that would also be ignoring the art of the comic form.

Let’s take a step back into our own histories for a second - remember history class in high school? Did you about a seminal event in history in which you were also taught the facts from the other side? If you were, you’re lucky. Despite this black and white teaching of history, we know that what’s taught to us is not always that simple. Similarly, as Forget Sorrow begins, a lot of the interactions between her and her father seem very unfair - how was she to know that Rotten Egg would have been that way? True, we don’t see the events that led her to meeting Rotten Egg, but her father’s reaction to her bad decisions seems unfair and not taking her sorrow and fear into account. However, as the memoir continues, we begin to see Yang and her father growing closer as they begin to understand each other more. While they still fight, their arguments “go only hours, not days” (134) as her father’s stories of his family history and Yang’s documentation of them brings them closer together. This very much mirrors his own father’s relationship with his brothers and father (the patriarch) when it came to Third Uncle taking over the management of the land being farmed. When the teapot is thrown and the Patriarch calls Father “ingrate” (87) it is colored *wiggles eyebrows, throws some finger guns* with the knowledge that Father knows Third Uncle will likely keep the best of the harvest for himself as well as the knowledge we bring to the situation of what is to come in the future with the rise of Communism in China and the famine. However, as the narrative continues, both Father and the Patriarch eventually reconcile. This is done first with the apology required by the culture to make peace in their family (121-123) and later with the end of the Patriarch’s life in which Father is the only one of his children to take him during the famine (241). In both of these moments, we as the reader bring the color to the panels based on the semi-omnipotent knowledge of the history that Yang’s father’s narration gives us as he describes the situations of each family member during his lifetime.

In addition, the choice to have the panels be black and white rather than colored in also mirrors the state of politics through the narrative (both familial and national) since whoever is in power decides history and how it is presented and read by others. The previous examples give us a sense of those familial politics so I won’t give anymore (though I definitely could). The main example that I want to look at is when the Patriarch goes to Fourth Uncle’s house and expects to be taking in since he has his own grain ration tickets. This expectation, which would be expected of Fourth Uncle under familial politics, is countered with national politics instead because of Fourth Uncle’s application into to join the Communist party. Because of their application and the Patriarch having been labeled a Capitalist, the black and white view of the wife says that they cannot associate with the Patriarch lest he put their application at risk. This artistic choice deepens the experience and meaning behind the narrative as it is being told.